Demanding Our Attention

What can we learn today about human relationships from reading the Hebrew Bible, filled with such ancient stories as that of a father who raised a knife to slaughter his beloved son? Contemporary Christian ethical discussions tend to treat the Hebrew Bible in a limited, distanced, and even dismissive way. Emily Arndt here argues that ancient scriptures can be a vital resource for Christian ethics. Focusing on a close analysis of the akedah -- the Genesis account of Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac -- Arndt demonstrates the power of even the most troubling and uncomfortable Old Testament narratives to teach valuable ethical lessons. The act of placing ourselves in relationship to such complex, challenging, perhaps unresolvable sacred texts, she says, is in itself a practice that can help us learn to relate authentically and ethically to others.